Octavia

  Caecilia did not wait for the door to hiss shut before she had dragged Octavia down to her lips. The taller woman’s mind raced as a warm sweet tongue filled her mouth before shrinking back. Caecilia’s eyes burned with a fierce hunger as she flicked her cybernetic tongue across her lips. Octavia could see the thin line of a seam where the tongue could fork. She worked the locking mechanism with one hand and used the other to fumble with the complicated dress.

  “Just rip it!” Caecilia growled as she pulled on the zipper of Octavia’s coat. She gasped ecstatically as she felt the fabric tear away from her chest. One hand cupped her breast while the other grabbed her by the waist and shoved her back into the wall with a light thud; she moaned on instinct, her eyes rolling back into her head.

  “I hope that was okay–” Octavia was immediately cut off by Caecilia stripping her shirt off. Standing on the tip of her toes, she ran the seam of her tongue along one of Octavia’s pebbled nipples. The taller woman moaned like an animal in heat, shivering as the tongue split and feathered its way down her body, punctuated by small kisses.

  Kneeling, Caecilia pulled at Octavia’s trousers and gasped, finding nothing but smooth skin; Octavia chuckled nervously.

  “I should have warned you.” She reached above the shorter woman and tapped the wall. A section of the wall slid open and revealed a collection of sex organs, a menagerie of every shape and size and sex, as well as a few with no analogues. Caecilia squealed and slipped out of Octavia’s arms so she could get a better look.

  “You have… a collection!” Her eyes twinkled in the artificial starlight. “I think I might be in love.” She reached up towards one of the cocks, looking back at Octavia for approval before touching it. “They feel just like flesh!”

  “Pick one!” Octavia chuckled, watching Caecilia’s hands glide over a dozen different prosthetics. In the end, she selected a small cock with no testes and held it up to Octavia like a holy sacrament. A few centimeters from her groin, metallic tendrils stretched and connected to the base of the member. The synthetic skin of the cock knit itself to her smooth pseudoskin until they appeared to be one flesh. Caecilia gasped and giggled as she watched the process.

  “That’s brilliant! They don’t have anything like that in Olympos.”

  Octavia tried to give her a confident smile. “I designed them myself.” She pointed a finger at two prosthetics set apart from the others, a matching penis and vulva. “Those were my first, at fourteen.”

  Caecilia gave her a look of amazement. “You designed your own cybernetics at fourteen?” Octavia couldn’t help giggling at her wonder. Caecilia blushed and started to explore the rest of the cabin, cataloging the entire space with a mischievous grin. The walls were bare and grey, dominated by shelves overflowing with books, only broken by the bedroom door across the room. She touched each shelf as she slipped the rest of the way out of her ruined dress then id herself out on the couch. With a wink, she spread her legs.

  From across the room, Octavia could see the glisten of her cunt in the faux-starlight. A small and erect cock sat where a clit might have been. It only took a moment for Octavia to strip the st of her clothing off and cross the room, her own womanhood hardening from the sight alone. Her ring finger teased Caecilia’s lips while she stroked the little cock with her thumb and extracted a little twitch of ecstasy.

  “You are a vision, Caecilia.” She brought their faces close, her pert breasts pressing against the smaller woman’s much rger chest. Pebbled nipples brushed together, making them both moan into the other’s mouth. “I want to know you.” Her cock pressed against Caecilia’s thigh as they both began to grind their hips. Her skin burned for this woman.

  Caecilia grabbed her face with both hands, her eyes roiling with molten lust. “I need you inside me. I have needed you since you walked into the room.” Octavia grinned wickedly and kissed down her squirming body. Taking a nipple between her teeth, her lover shed it with her tongue until Caecilia’s back arched. Gasping, she looked pleadingly up into Octavia’s eyes. “Don’t be gentle.”

  Octavia met her gaze as she firmly gripped the little cock. Caecilia’s breath caught as she began pumping, so slow it made the smaller woman ache with anticipation. She is overcome with a desire to see Caecilia begging on her knees as the pumping picked up speed and her lover’s moans start to rise in pitch. She kissed her way down abaster skin until her lips met the angle of her supple hips; without warning, she dug her teeth into the sensitive skin hard enough she almost broke the skin.

  Caecilia cried out in ecstasy and shuddered, a small dribble of fluid escaping from the tip of her cock. Octavia grinned against her skin and marvelled at how sensitive she was, teasing the tip of her cock to extend the orgasm. Caecilia quivered and moaned as she floated back to reality; she smiled down at Octavia and ran a hand through the tall woman’s fiery hair. She moaned as Octavia licked her shrinking shaft, drinking the little trail of cum before retracing the trail of her body to kiss her lips.

  “I like how you taste.” Octavia whispered as she pressed her length against Caecilia’s cunt. The soft pseudoskin became slick with lubrication, causing Caecilia to mewl. Octavia winked at her with a smirk. “Special features.”

  Caecilia grabbed her face and kissed her deeply. Octavia felt the little cock harden against her as she rocked her hips and slid herself in, Caecilia’s thighs wrapping around her waist like a vice. They found a rhythm quickly, each of them making music from the other’s mouth. Caecilia gripped her cock and squeezed Octavia; she grinned wickedly as the fiery woman struggled to stay composed.

  “Fuck, that’s a delightful face!” She squeezed Octavia again and pulled her deeper with a mischievous look in her eyes. Octavia came very close to the edge, slowing her hips. Caecilia’s arms wrap around her neck and the forked tongue flicks against her ear. “Don’t you dare stop, you maddening woman.” Nails dug into Octavia’s back as she thrusted– desperate and without rhythm. “Yes– fuck me!”

  Her mind bnked as the space between her and Caecilia ceased to exist for a moment. She crested through a wave of pleasure, then another. Caecilia’s head whipped back as she squeezed Octavia close with her thighs, her own cock again flowing with satisfaction. Octavia let her drop to the couch and leaned heavily against its back. Her eyes met Caecilia’s and she smiled, suddenly shy as Caecilia snickered up at her.

  I want this forever, she thought.

  ***Caecilia gasped as she activated the lights in the bathroom and revealed the rgest shower she has ever seen in her life. Every surface inside it was jet bck, the grout glowing faintly with gold light. There were two matching spouts in the ceiling that sported wide golden fixtures. Octavia grinned at the look of wonder on her lovers face as she activated the war with a tap to her wrist's impnt.

  Caecilia squealed. "You could fit a dozen people in this," She added with a wink back at Octavia.

  The taller woman ughed. "When I celebrated my majority, I had my entire cohort in there at once. Twenty-one randy women." She smiled sheepishly, amazing at how easy it was to confess things to a woman she'd barely met. Already, she wanted to bear every micrometer of her soul.

  Caeclia giggled and stepped into the steaming water. "Such a womanizer! Do you invite all your fans into your shower?" She again gave Octavia a wink, inviting her in.

  "When I was a teenager? Yes, absolutely. I find myself far more discerning now, though." She took a tablet of soap and held it up for Caecilia to sample. It smelled like a blend of citrus. Octavia worked it in the water until her hands were covered in suds before she began to knead it into her lover's hair. As she worked, she continued matter-of-factly, "To be honest, I don't keep a lot of company here anymore. I spend nearly all of my time in the office." She motioned for Caecilia to stand under one of the streams of water to rinse.

  "What are you writing, now?" Caecilia's face was soft as she turned to face Octavia, her eyes betraying her hunger.

  "Writing is more of a hobby than anything," she responded, starting to work the soap into her firey hair. Caecilia's fingers traced the path along her abs, sending a shiver through her body; she was suddenly gd that she was no longer wearing a prosthetic that would show her eagerness. "I work in the bs, for the council. We help the other science teams work through kinks when they get stuck."

  Caecilia nodded while she massaged her way across Octavia's body. Everywhere their skin touched bloomed like a forest fire in her mind. She sputtered a few times before continuing, "I… solve things, I guess. I always have. My mother once told me that I was like this before the impnts, though I hardly remember the time before impntation."

  Caecilia's hands stopped suddenly, a look of genuine shock on her face. "I've never met someone from the Eternal City. In the Underworld, of all pces." Octavia gave her a strange look, not understanding. The smaller woman ran her fingers through her own hair as she continued, "My parents taught me that children in the Eternal City were half-machine. I used to assume it was meant to scare me but it always made you sound so… fascinating."

  As her cleaning reached Octavia's groin pte, she grinned at the sounds the taller woman made. "Oh, it's sensitive!"

  "The nerve endings spread out when its in the neutral state. It makes the whole area more sensitive—hn!" Octavia bit her lip as Caeclia traced a path along the pte's border, along the small indent where the pseudoflesh knit seamlessly with her own skin. The little woman grabbed a nipple with her free hand and winked yet again.

  "Let us see what we can do with that, then!"

  ***In her sleep, Octavia remembered.

  It wasn't quite a dream. She was nine years old and with her mother, walking hand-in-hand through a crowded market. The sky above was shockingly bright; the space ptform was old, the artificial sky above them poorly maintained. They were in Olympos, in orbit around the rgest moon; neutral ground, siding with neither the invading Imperium nor with the coaltion that opposed them.

  They ducked into a quiet shop that bore the name In Opulence, Death in gaudy neon orange. The air was thick and stifling with the smell of incense; she pulled at the colr of her jacket with her free hand. "Should I have a tailor look at it?" Her mother's voice was soft but worn, sounding decades older than her thirty years. It is the Roman woman's duty to suffer she was fond of saying when the servants bid her rest.

  "The tailor wouldn't be able to help," she said sullenly. It wasn't the fabric that made her uncomfortable. Her first time leaving the estate and she was wearing the tunic and jacket of a boy.

  Her mother pulled her close; five years till her majority and they were almost the same height. "It won't be much longer, baby. As soon as we're on the ship." The hug was warm and inviting; Octavia melted into it for a long moment before an elderly woman called from further in the shop.

  "Did you see who spoke from the rostra, Iovita?" It was a request for a passphrase, something her mother had been taught to listen for. The old woman stood tensely behind a counter stacked above her head with teas; her red eyes scanned every inch of her visitors as she waited.

  "It was a man in red, with pallid skin, Saturnia." Came the response from Octavia's mother.

  The old woman rexed and tapped the counter to lock the door behind them. "I expected you days ago, Valeria. I even deyed the unch by a few hours." She waved dismissively as Valeria gnced sheepishly at the floor. "It's fine, you're here now. Let's go."

  The maintenence corridors were dark and dreary, a stark contrast to the market with its blinding light. The little collection of humans dodged past drones repairing, maintaining and repurposing various parts of the city-station, powered by an esoteric form of limited intelligence that was developed before the Imperium had left Terra. Octavia could not help wondering at how much understanding of its inner workings was lost to antiquity. The bck many-limbed extensions of its algorithm passing them by made her think of the swarm drones of the Legion, with their deadly tentacles.

  An hour ter, they climbed up into the belly of a freight carrier from a small hatch beneath it. When Octavia had asked— of course she had asked— the old woman expined that it was an old smuggler's hatch, from the old days of corporate trade wars. "Built on the order of the CEO himself. To smuggle the tea that he liked but had to embargo," she had added with a wink.

  Her mother and her were sheparded into a shipping container; against one side sat two ancient longsleep rigs. "From the exploration days, if you can believe it," the old woman had idly volunteered as she powered the two beds up. She motioned for Octavia to climb into the first.

  It smelled like antiseptic and rubber as she id face down on the chrome bed. "When you wake up, you will be free." Valeria held her hand as the needles pierced her flesh, filling her veins with a cold sensation.

  "And I will always be with you."

  ***The soft glow of the artificial sun pressed against Octavia's eyelids as she stirred from the deepest sleep of her life. She was wrapped in the velvet softness of her polyfiber sheets, a stark contrast to the stabbing pain in her forhead. She groaned and rolled onto her stomach, pressing her face against the pillow in a vain effort to be anything other than awake right now. Her hand ran along the empty bed beside her.

  Her eyes shot open and she gnced around the room as images of the night before flooded her mind; Caecilia beneath her screaming with pleasure, her delicious taste after she spilled, the way her little cock felt as it teased Octavia's cunt. The way their cocks felt pressed against each other. Her head swam as the pleasure of the night before mixed with the pain of her migraine.

  In the light of an artificial morning, Octavia was alone.

  She should feel normal. Aside from casual girlfriends through the years, she'd always woken up alone. She preferred to be alone! Other people are a storm of contraditions and expectations; her space has always been a solitary refuge.

  So why do I feel so empty?

  She rose from the bed and collected her prosthetics from around the room. Caecilia had been insatiable, eager to try as many combinations as she could. It was hard not to imagine her on her knees, her mouth pping at Octavia's lips, face flushed and sweaty. She wants to see that look for the rest of her life.

  She stumbled into the bathroom and deposited the prosthetics— six cocks, two vulvas and something that resembled a sea anemone— into a specialized cleaning tank. The lid slid closed as her impnts fed it instructions for cleaning.

  Under the steaming water of the shower, she sobbed quietly to herself as the void within her stretched to the breaking point. The obsidian surface around her filled her with a need to relive the night before. Cries of ecstasy echoed in her head as it throbbed and waves of nausea left her cumbled on the floor.

  She had to see Caecilia again.

  Sitting on the tiled floor of her bathroom an hour ter— repying Caecilia's face as she crested into orgasm in her mind— Octavia connected to the communication network. She selected the most recent unopened message from áine and replied without reading:

  Aine,

  This message will serve as my official resignation as special councillor to the Gate Project. I will be taking my earned personal time before I commit to another project, but I intend to spend some time developing a more robust set of cybernetics. I believe I can do good work toward rebuilding those who lose the use of their flesh.

  I am sorry that I disappoint you.

  love?

  Tavi